Ronald Gene Simmons

Ronald Gene Simmons Sr. (July 15, 1940 – June 25, 1990) was an American mass murderer who killed 16 people over a week-long period in Arkansas in 1987 and wounded several others.

A retired military serviceman, Simmons murdered fourteen members of his family, including a daughter he had sexually abused and the child he had fathered with her, as well as a former co-worker, and a stranger; he also wounded four others.

He is the most prolific mass murderer in Arkansas history.

His shooting is also the deadliest mass shooting in Arkansas history.

Ronald Gene Simmons was born to Loretta and William Simmons on July 15, 1940, in Chicago, Illinois.

On January 31, 1943, William Simmons died of a stroke.

Within a year, Simmons's mother had remarried, this time to William D. Griffen, a civil engineer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

In 1946, the corps moved Griffen to Little Rock, Arkansas, the first of several transfers that would take the family across central Arkansas over the next decade.

On September 15, 1957, Simmons dropped out of school and joined the U.S. Navy, and was first stationed at Naval Station Bremerton in Washington, where he met Bersabe Rebecca "Becky" Ulibarri, whom he married in New Mexico on July 9, 1960.

Over the next 18 years, the couple had seven children.

In 1963, Simmons left the Navy, and, approximately two years later, joined the U.S. Air Force.

During his 20-year military career, Simmons was awarded a Bronze Star Medal, the Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Cross for his service as an airman, and the Airforce Ribbon for Excellent Marksmanship.

Simmons retired from the Air Force and military service on November 30, 1979, with the rank of master sergeant.

On April 3, 1981, Simmons was being investigated by the Cloudcroft, New Mexico Department of Human Services for allegations that he had fathered a child with his 17-year-old daughter, Sheila, whom he had been sexually abusing.

Fearing arrest, Simmons fled New Mexico in late 1981 with his family, first to Ward, Arkansas, in Lonoke County, and then to Pope County near Dover, Arkansas in the summer of 1983.

The family took up residence on a 13-acre tract of land 6.5 miles north of Dover that they would dub "Mockingbird Hill."

The residence was constructed of two older-model mobile homes joined to form one large home, neither of which had a telephone nor indoor plumbing, and was surrounded by a makeshift privacy fence which was as high as 10 feet tall in some places.

As a result of the home's lack of plumbing, Simmons ordered his family to dig three cesspits, one of which would eventually be where he disposed of some of their bodies.

Simmons worked a string of low-paying jobs in the nearby town of Russellville, Arkansas.

He quit a position as an accounts receivable clerk at Woodline Motor Freight after numerous reports of inappropriate sexual advances.

He went to work at a Sinclair Mini Mart for approximately a year and a half before quitting on December 18, 1987.

By the time of the killings, the number of people within the home had reduced to seven, as two of the older children (Billy and Sheila) moved out, married, and had children of their own.

Shortly before Christmas 1987, Simmons decided to kill all the members of his family.

On the morning of December 22, he first killed his wife Rebecca and eldest son Gene by bludgeoning them with a crowbar and shooting them with a .22-caliber pistol.

He then killed his three-year-old granddaughter Barbara by strangulation.

Simmons dumped the bodies in one of the cesspits he had forced his children to dig previously.

Simmons then waited for his other children to return from school for Christmas break.

Upon their arrival, he told them he had presents for them but wanted to give them one at a time.

He first killed his daughter, 17-year-old Loretta, whom Simmons strangled and held under the water in a rain barrel.

The three other children, Eddy, Marianne, and Becky, were then killed in the same way, and subsequently dumped in the cesspit.

Around mid-day on December 26, the remaining family members arrived at the home, as Simmons had invited them over for the holidays.

The first to be killed was Simmons' son Billy and his wife Renata, who were both shot dead.

He then strangled and drowned their 20-month-old son, Trae.

Simmons also shot and killed his oldest daughter, Sheila (whom he had sexually abused), and her husband, Dennis McNulty.

Simmons then strangled his child by Sheila, seven-year-old Sylvia Gail, and finally, his 21-month-old grandson Michael.

Simmons laid the bodies of his whole family in neat rows in the lounge.

Their bodies were covered with coats except that of Sheila, who was covered by Rebecca Simmons' best tablecloth.

The bodies of Trae and Michael were wrapped in plastic sheeting and left in abandoned cars at the end of the lane.

Simmons was sentenced to death on each of the sixteen counts, and after refusing to appeal his sentence, was executed on June 25, 1990.

His refusal to appeal was the subject of a 1990 US Supreme Court case, Whitmore v. Arkansas.